ENERGY

1.  Excess Energy is Vital to Growth and a Better Human Experience  

EROI = Energy Return on Investment

EROI =  Quantity of Energy Supplied/Quantity of Energy Used in the Supply Process

Prior to the last few hundred years, humans lived in a linear world with a steady level of population due to the positive feedbacks that kept humans within a certain boundary.  Humans depended on energy from the sun.  With the discovery of new energy (coal, oil, & gas), humans used these fuels with their ingenuity to develop the world you see today.

The important lesson we want to drive home in this section is the vital aspect of excess energy.  The surplus is so important both in the development of current society and whether it can be sustained moving forward.  

How did the human population of the planet grow so fast over the last couple hundred years?  

Excess Energy  

Humans, plants, and other species need to invest energy and get a good return on their investment.  

Survival depends on this concept.

Exploring this further in nature...

Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT) >  Traits for an individual will be selected that maximize surplus energy gained per unit of time from foraging.  OFT predicts the most profitable feeding strategy for an organism given the costs of capturing the food versus the energy gained from the food the food capture.  

DO:  Societies, Organizations, and Individuals will have various levels of approach and avoid based on their excess energy equation.  Human Society, Organizations, and Individuals seek higher EROI.  Society needs higher EROI for electricity, roads, hospitals, schools, and more.  Organizations and Individuals seek income/profit (Money is a claim on energy and resources).

For thousands of years, the average annual growth of the human economy would be unnoticeable from one generation to the next.  In the early 19th century, 10,000 years after the agricultural revolution, humans discovered how to extract fossil energy and materials from the earth to boost their economies.

The discovery of geologically ‘stored sunlight’ in the form of coal, oil, and gas changed the human experience. 

The Power of this discovery and its impact 

In comparison to a global labor force of around 5 billion real humans at the time - machines and work powered by access to buried carbon energy added the equivalent power of 500 billion human workers.  This leverage has powered the growth in human population and wealth.

Obtaining a larger energy surplus gives us a competitive advantage for survival and reproduction. This role of surplus energy is a core driver of the natural world.  

DO:  This energy surplus plays a vital role in current Approach/Avoid behavior at the societal and individual level.

2.  DISORDER - The natural tendency of all things is toward disorder. If you want order, energy must be invested.

DO:  A city, a building, a home, a vehicle, a business, a human body, etc.  Constant energy is required to bring order from disorder.

As humans, we are constantly looking to find additional energy to maintain and acquire resources.

ENTROPY

Entropy is a measure of disorder or randomness in a system.  It is a measure of the amount of energy that, during an energy transformation, becomes no longer available to do work.  We will discuss this concept more in the environment section.

Order is important to focus on because it represents the maintenance of biological and economic structure - very specific molecules in an organism - structures/buildings in a city - a sandwich, etc.

The price of maintaining order is extracting and using energy from the environment.

DO:  Lessons from this work on EROI.  We as individuals, organizations, and society are constantly seeking excess energy to survive and thrive.  We also seek order and certainty as they increase our chances of survival - (Disorder and uncertainty demand energy - increases risk).  Since the direction is constantly toward disorder, we need energy to keep our world in order.  Energy, Order, and Certainty - all three are important points as we design maps.  Societies seek to grow, which demands energy.  But it is also important to note that a society that just stays where it is at requires a lot of energy.  Think of all the infrastructure of a city.  Even if the city does not grow or is in decline, it requires a lot of energy to maintain wealth from the past (because of disorder).

3.  The easiest and best energy sources go first

High quality ores and energy deposits are now mostly things of the past. There are still plenty of ores and energy - but it’s of lower quality, and both more costly and ecologically destructive to extract. 

From an energy and resource perspective, humans have and will continue to search for the best EROI on energy and resources.   Thus, sticking a straw in the ground for oil has moved to massive structures in the oceans, digging for miles, and fracking for lower EROI (tight) oil.

4. Complexity requires more energy 

Getting back to the city population growth example within the Exponential section, reflect on the increased complexity required to run a much larger city, and thus, the amount of surplus energy needed for the city to survive and thrive.  As society gets more complex, reflect on the fact that more energy is required (more energy just to maintain past obtained wealth - more energy for new technologies > Ex. AI Data Centers, Crypto mining)

5. Money is a direct claim on energy and resources

As we create more money, we don't create more resources; we merely access them faster.  Debt allows us to spend resources from the future.  

A lesson to remember as we witness growth and the expansion of any money supply, it all requires energy.

More Growth = Ever-increasing demand for energy

If we were to grow the global economy at 3% as most governments and institutions expect, we would use as much energy and materials in the next few decades as we have in the past 10,000 years.

6. Humans have and will continue to leverage energy for wealth

A barrel of oil contains 5,700,000 BTU's or 1700 kWh of work potential

   >  It takes an average person 4.5 years to generate this amount of work

   >  World uses 100 billion barrels of oil per year 

   >  Labor equivalent to 500 billion human workers to the real labor force of 5 billion workers

7.  Human society is just paying for the extraction cost of oil. It was already in the ground long ago.

The cost of energy impacts the leverage of energy:

Story of Industrialization - Example of milking cows

Hand milking - Near $5 USD purchase per hour of work

Parlour Milking - Near $20 USD purchase per hour of work (Takes 180x more Energy)

Automated Milking - Near $25 USD purchase per hour of work (Takes 400x more Energy)

>  When prices of energy move up (Example - from 5 USD cents to 15 USD cents hWh) there is a Large decline in profits of highly intensive energy processes  

Every unit of GDP requires

- Energy

- Materials

- Innovation/technology

Globally, GDP and Energy are over 99% correlated.  

Wealth = Energy

The vast amount of technological improvements requires more energy in the future

We are getting more efficient - For example:  Since 1990, we have become 36% more energy efficient.  In that same period, we have increased energy consumption by 63% (Jevons Paradox)

Important Note:

Jevons Paradox definition >  When the cost of using a resource decreases due to increased efficiency, it becomes more attractive for consumers and industries to use it. This increased affordability leads to higher consumption and can potentially offset the initial gains in efficiency. 

8.  Since energy and wealth (power, influence, survival, etc.) are correlated, government policies will be aggressive in the pursuit of energy 

To better understand world politics, it is recommended to reflect on this statement and do a Detached Observation of society to see nation states compete for energy. 

9.  Excluding New Growth - Past Growth and Current Wealth require energy

If human society stopped growing this afternoon, we would need a tremendous amount of energy to just maintain this past wealth.  This follows from the Statement on Disorder.

Positive and higher EROI is vital for society, an organization, and an individual

Society Risk:  Hospitals, Schools, Museums, Great Infrastructure, Electricity, etc. -  All of these require excess energy.  When a society loses excess energy, the benefits of this excess energy begin to be chipped away.  This has consequences on physical and cultural survival (and on approach-avoid behavior).  Monitor multiple budget cuts around the globe to see this in real-time.

Organization Financial Risk:  Reflect on the difference between two organizations.  An organization that is thriving and is at the top of its field versus an organization drowning in debt and going bankrupt.  Positive EROI for an organization means more resources for the organization, its employees, and its customers.  

Along with reaching financial objectives, how is your organization monitoring the culture (and emotion of your organization) along with its impact on employees, customers, and the community you are in?  How is change impacting all this?

Organization Fuel Risk:  Each organization has their demand for energy so the implication of costs will be different for each.  The price of energy will have a degree of correlation to excess energy (extraction costs).  

How is your organization monitoring risks to availability, potential change, and costs of energy?  

How are you monitoring individual energy - available and excess (customers, employees, community)?

Individual Risk:  A person with positive energy (financially and emotionally) has different opportunities and ability to handle change versus not having resources to survive.  

The world needs a lot of energy.  Competition between energy sectors and nations can harm society as a whole and all the way down.

Society Risk:  Lack of energy will disrupt leveraged wealth as a whole.  Society is already too leveraged.  Shortfalls of energy will impact all of society.

Organization Risk:  Organizations relying on specific energy sectors can have large disruptions.  This will put them at a competitive disadvantage.

How is your organization monitoring changes to world energy markets and the competition for excess energy?

Individual Risk:  Individuals can be impacted depending on source of energy and where they live.  More detail can be discussed.

Technology will impact/change energy equations

It is a race.  With more human population and their needs for excess energy, technology needs to advance to provide the world population with energy.

Society Risk:  Society needs high ERIO's - cheap energy to grow and thrive.  Risk of higher extractions costs will impact the world as a whole.  Technology needs to increase quickly to offset these higher costs.

Organization Risk:  Rising costs and access risk.  As mentioned within Exponential, decisions and events within exponential environments carry larger risks.

How are you monitoring changes in technology for energy use for the organization? 

How are you monitoring changes in technology that will provide employees and customers more energy?

Individual Risk:  Budgets are strained for a majority of people.  Lower EROI as a whole will increase energy costs to this strained budget.

2025

Highlights from Energy Institute 2025 Statistic Review of World Energy

> Wind and Solar combined grew 16% (China responsible for 57% of new additions)

> Wind and Solar grew nearly 9x faster than total energy demand

> Fossil Fuel growth over 1%

> World had 2% annual rise in total energy demand

          - 592 EJ (Exajoules)

                    - Exajoule > a unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI), representing one quintillion joules, or 1018 joules. It is used to measure very large amounts of energy, such as the total global energy consumption per year, and is equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules.

                    - Joule > the standard metric unit for measuring energy, work, or heat, defined as the energy transferred when a force of one newton moves an object over a distance of one meter. For example, lifting an apple one meter requires approximately one joule of energy

> All time records were reached across ALL forms of energy (coal, oil, gas, renewables, hydro and nuclear)

> Electricity demand growth at 4% outpaced total energy demand growth

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